


The Special Two

by Baylor



Series: The Special Two [1]
Category: Firefly
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Character Death, Friendship, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 20:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baylor/pseuds/Baylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Serenity suffers a disastrous crash, Jayne finds himself abandoned with River.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Special Two

Jayne wasn’t sure how things got so turned around, but something went wrong somewhere, that’s for sure. It probably had to do with thieving off that weapons-loaded merc ship and Serenity getting blown out of the black and into the world in a spectacular crash, but if Jayne had to put his finger on it, he’d go back way further than that and say it started when Mal picked up that doc and his crazy sister and didn’t turn around and put them right back down. 

Of course, Mal and Zoe going all raving mad and hell-bent on some kind of revenge didn’t help matters, but Jayne understood that they took it personal, Wash and Kaylee dying like they had. In the long run, he figured they were the lucky ones. He was the one stuck on the ship with the doc all messed up like he was, and the crazy girl all messed up like she always was, and the preacher-man all calm and serene like no one ought to be with the ship torn right in half. 

Raving mad, hell-bent revenge Jayne could have helped with, but Mal and Zoe didn’t want nothing to do with him and instead he got to baby-sit and watch the poor doc suffer for three days until he finally gave it up and died. 

Something had gone wrong there, too, and not just with Simon dying. People died, no getting around that. But the shepherd should have been there with him, not Jayne. He’d been tending to the doc since the crash, and to River, while Jayne ineptly banged around the ship. He told the others he was making repairs and such, but mostly he was clearing away debris. Ship repairs were as far out of his league as doctoring was, and seeing as how nobody ever came looking for them after Mal and Zoe left, he wasn’t doing much practical in way protecting the ship like Mal had told him too. 

He could watch the doc sleep, though, so that Book could rest for a while. While Simon slept fitfully, Jayne cleaned his guns. Well, what he could find of his guns. Vera was missing some essential parts, and it hurt him in his chest to see her all bashed up. 

The doc was all bashed up too. Internal bleeding, he said, and unless one of them learned how to do surgery real quick-like, he was just going to keep bleeding inside. Jayne figured his crazy sister probably could figure out how to do it, but she’d been real busy throwing herself against walls and screaming and pulling her hair ever since they crashed. 

When Simon had called his name, real quiet-like, Jayne thought he wanted water or something. Water was what Jayne tried to give him at least, but Simon had pushed the cup from his mouth. His lips were ashen. 

“River,” he breathed. 

“She’s sleeping, and I ain’t waking her up,” Jayne said. River was a handful of bother when she was awake. 

“You have to take care of her,” Simon said, and caught hold of Jayne’s wrist. “Promise me.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m mindin’ everything until Mal gets back,” Jayne said, and tried to pull his wrist away. 

“No,” Simon said, and tightened his grip. “Promise me. Promise me you’ll take care of her.” His breathing quickened, and his eyes, fixed intently on Jayne, were so dilated they nearly appeared all black. 

Wanting to escape, Jayne said, “All right, all right, I promise. I’ll take care of her. You sure you don’t want water or something?” 

“No, I don’t need anything,” Simon said, and then he took two shuddering breaths and just died, right like that. 

“Well, hell,” Jayne said, and shut Simon’s eyes. 

_____

That was the third day. On the twelfth day, Book found Jayne scrambling around what used to be his bunk, still looking for Vera’s scope, and suggested that perhaps Mal and Zoe weren’t coming back. 

The thought had crossed Jayne’s mind, but Mal had told him to stay with the ship until he got back, and Jayne wasn’t sure what else to do. The mule was toast, the comm was toast, they were on some backwater moon that he didn’t even know was inhabited, and the last he knew there was still a shipful of very, very bad people somewhere close by intent on blowing them to pieces. 

Twelve days though, and no very, very bad people had shown up, and maybe they were more in danger of not being found than of being found at this point. Book pointed out that they still had a shuttle, and while it certainly wasn’t able to fly, they might be able to fix the comm system in it. 

“And call who?” Jayne asked, irritated that he hadn’t given the remaining shuttle any thought. 

“Does it matter?” Book asked, and Jayne looked around the wreck of his bunk and at the tin of processed protein he’d been eating out of and realized that it didn’t. 

_____

Jayne found penny-ante work at the settlement’s docks, enough to pay for their room and start squirreling away for fare to get off this craphole. Book read his Bible and watched crazy-girl all day. Jayne got claustrophobic in their dusty little room in a way he never had onboard. He counted his money carefully each night. He hoped the preacher understood that it was Jayne’s money, not his, and not River’s. They’d have to figure out their own way out of the world. 

_____

It was real strange how Book had fixed the shuttle comm system so easy. Of course, there’d been two more weeks of sitting around inside Serenity’s corpse until someone had picked them up, but the preacher sure had made short work of fixing that thing. 

There were lots of strange things about Book, like how handy he was with taking people out and him being all knowledgeable about things you wouldn’t think a shepherd would know. And how he found himself a ride off the craphole so neatly, though he didn’t have any money that Jayne knew of. Sometimes, Jayne didn’t think he was a proper shepherd at all. 

Strangest of all was him leaving River behind. 

”I ain’t watching her,” Jayne said when he came to understand the preacher’s intentions. 

“Oh, yes, you are,” Book said with calm confidence. “I seem to recall you sharing with me Simon’s last words, and your response to him.” 

“Huh?” Jayne said blankly. 

“You promised him you would take care of his sister,” Book said pointedly. “And that’s exactly what you’re going to do.” 

“What?!” Jayne said. “I got us off that wreck, I made sure she got here safe and sound. I wasn’t signing on for no lifelong commitment when I told him that.” 

“You made a promise to a dying man,” Book said, and folded the last of his clothing into his bag before snapping it shut. “People who break promises to dying men go to a very special level of hell reserved for child molesters and bartenders who water down their whiskey.” 

“Now, listen here,” Jayne said, feeling full-on angry red bubbling up to his head, but Book cut him off. 

“No, you listen here,” he said, and got right into Jayne’s face. “You’re going to take care of that girl. You’re going to make sure no one hurts her, that she’s fed, that she has someplace to sleep, and that she’s clear of danger. And if you don’t, you’re going to have to deal with me, Jayne. Do you understand?” 

People getting in his face pissed Jayne off, but something in the shepherd’s eyes was downright scary. “I ain’t responsible for that girl,” he said, but his voice was weak and his words hollow and he knew it. 

Book smiled calmly at him. “Of course you are,” he said. 

“Where are you going, anyway?” Jayne asked, trying to get some force back in his voice. 

“I have something that I have to do,” Book said, stepping away from Jayne and pulling on his coat. “Something I’ve put off for too long.” He picked up his bag. 

“You could’ve got us passage too, you know,” Jayne said petulantly. 

Book gave him another pleasant smile. “Good-bye, Jayne,” he said. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” and walked out the door. 

“Well, hell,” Jayne said, and kicked the table. 

_____

The girl was a pain in his ass, and that was the kindest way Jayne could describe the situation. He couldn’t get decent work no matter where he went because he had to watch her all the damn time or she’d get it into her head to do all manner of crazy things. He wanted to get signed up on a new ship but then there was the little matter of her being wanted by the Feds and never knowing who might turn her in, and him for harboring her, so instead he just ended up working for their passage from one craphole to the next. 

She’d gone all weird and creepified after Book left, not talking to Jayne for weeks, though she did bash him in the head once with a lamp and hit him in the groin with a well-aimed knee. Good times , Jayne had thought as he’d gone down, clutching himself. 

It was creepy, her being so quiet, but once she started back up with the crazy-talk, he wished they could go back to the silence. He never knew what she was trying to tell him exactly, but he got two things clear enough: she wanted her brother and she hated the hell out of Jayne. And she wasn’t exactly endearing herself to him, especially since she’d grown out her fingernails for the express purpose of breaking open Jayne’s skin at any opportunity. 

It made Jayne wonder if the Special Hell could be any worse than this. 

_____

“Do you really think there’s a Special Hell?” River asked one day, arranging silverware in patterns on the table while Jayne cleaned his guns. 

“Who said anything about the Special Hell?” Jayne asked, not looking up. 

“You think about it all the time,” River said, using a spoon to complete an octagon. 

Jayne started polishing the barrel of his pistol vigorously. “Well, I ain’t risking going there on account of you,” he finally said. 

“I’m touched,” River answered, then jabbed the table with a fork so forcefully that it stuck there, vibrating. 

_____

Jayne was working at a space station waste reclamation center when Inara found him. He knew what he smelled like, but she could have taken some efforts to hide it. She was mighty pissed to find that he locked River in their room, too, but Jayne sure would have liked to know how she would have earned wages to keep them fed and clothed while making sure Little Miss Looney didn’t decide to take a space walk or some other such nonsense. 

Inara also made a big fuss about River’s ratted hair and torn clothes and dirty face and lack of shoes. Hell, Jayne thought, it just ever ain’t enough for people, is it? 

Out loud, he said, “Well, you can dress her up however you want now that you’ve come to get her. Parade her around in some pink frill-thing like Kaylee had for all I care. I’ve done kept her fed and safe and housed, and that’s all I’m obliged to do.” 

Inara, seated on the bed beside River, frowned but didn’t look at Jayne. River seemed glad to see the Companion, or at least she wasn’t clawing her all up and screaming. Instead, she’d taken the trail of Inara’s silk shawl between her fingers and was touching it carefully, studying it intently. 

“She needs a doctor, Jayne,” Inara finally said. 

“So take her to one,” Jayne fired back. 

_____

Jayne didn’t see as why he had to come along, but Inara paid their fare so he took the free ride. She also got them both fixed up real nice with new clothes and such, which Jayne appreciated as he could feel the floor beneath the soles of his old boots and all his clothes smelled either like smoke from the crash or like garbage from the reclamation center. 

The girl looked better, he had to admit, once she let Inara bathe her and fix up her hair. Too bad she had to cut half of it off because it just wouldn’t be brushed, but at least she didn’t look so damn crazy now. 

He guessed the doc was a client of Inara’s or something. He had a real nice clinic, anyway, and they came in there when there was no one else around, not even any nurses or nothing. He asked Jayne a bunch of questions about River that he couldn’t answer, and for some reason, Jayne felt shamed by his ignorance. He also gently took Jayne’s hands in his and examined his marked-up arms, River’s favorite place to sink her nails. 

“She sleeps a lot but never all at once,” Jayne blurted out while the doctor looked over his arms with a furrowed brow. 

“How’s that?” the doctor asked. 

“She sleeps like three, four hours and then she gets up,” Jayne said. “Then she goes back to sleep two or three hours later.” 

“Does she get any exercise?” the doctor asked, looking up. 

“Other than this?” Jayne asked and pulled up on his arms. The doctor smiled wryly and let go of his wrists. 

“She’s well-fed,” he said. “You’re more banged up than she is. She isn’t sick, physically, at least. She’s been taken care of.” He stood up. “Let me go get something to clean your arms up with.” 

“I told you,” Jayne said to Inara, glowering at her. “I done what Book told me to do.” 

Inara, who had been dark and troubled ever since finding them, smiled tersely at him. “You did, Jayne,” she said. “You’ve done better than most would have.” 

“Jayne’s afraid of hell,” River said dreamily. She was playing with a stereoscope, listening to the exam bed. Inara raised her eyebrows at Jayne. 

“Just the Special Hell,” he said, and she didn’t ask for an explanation. 

_____

Inara wouldn’t take River in the end, though. Jayne was getting mighty sick of people who were supposed to be more respectable and decent and better than he refusing to take the damn girl off his hands. 

“I think she’s going to need someone like you, Jayne,” Inara said by way of explanation. 

“You’ve picked a gorram good time to suddenly think me useful,” Jayne snapped, and jerked away from the hand Inara tried to lay on his arm. 

“She was looking for Mal anyway,” River said as they watched her board the ship. 

“Well, Mal ain’t here,” Jayne said, and grabbed River’s hand as he turned his back on the departing Inara. 

_____

Inara had left them better situated, Jayne had to grudgingly give her that. She’s plunked a fine bit of cash into his hand before she’d left, and the doctor had made it clear they could come back any time, that Inara was taking care of it all. 

And Jayne surely did appreciate the medicines, even if it was right hard to keep them all straight. The doctor had gone over all of them with him carefully, twice, and everything was written down on a data pad for him. Jayne wasn’t sure if it was the medicines or seeing Inara or just not being all dirty, but River didn’t claw his arms up and scream bloody murder anymore. She also slept all night, which meant Jayne got to do the same, and that was a welcome relief. He didn’t understand much of what she said still, but at least she didn’t seem hell-bent on murdering him all the time now. 

Generally speaking, Jayne was used to trying to kill someone back when they tried to kill him. All of this making sure she didn’t hurt herself or draw undue attention was hard work. 

_____

One night, he got up and crossed the room to stand over River’s bed. In sleep, she looked childlike and vulnerable. Jayne’s hand twitched. 

He could leave. He could walk out of the room right now, find a ship to hop on, and be gone before she woke. Or, perhaps more merciful, he could end her right now and they both could be free. 

“There ain’t no Special Hell,” he finally said out loud, and took a step toward the sleeping girl. 

River didn’t open her eyes. “Yes, there is,” she said serenely, and Jayne backed up so quickly he crashed into his own bed ungracefully. He crawled shakily back into it and spent the rest of the night staring at the girl, afraid to close his eyes. 

_____

Now that she wasn’t so crazy all the time, Jayne started trying to make use of River. Turned out she was good with a weapon, though he was always a little nervous handing her one. Also turned out that she was real handy with locks and security systems and other things guarding valuable items that people didn’t want taken. They started with little jobs, and built from there. Jayne felt better, doing this kind of work. He wasn’t made to do the same thing day after day. 

The money felt good too, not having to worry about where their next meal was coming for. They could have done even better for themselves than they did, but Jayne didn’t want to get into anything too high-profile, nothing that would spread their names around. He didn’t plan on going to prison for River anymore than he planned on going to the Special Hell for her. 

He still picked up post from Amnon. His ma sent him something every now and then. And once, there was a handwritten letter from Book. 

_Jayne – Keep up the good work. You’re doing a very Special thing, I hope you know that. You are Special indeed to be trusted with such an important task. Always remember how Special you are. Your friend, Book_

Jayne swore vehemently in Chinese while he crumpled up the letter and stomped on it. River laughed, mouth wide open and eyes glowing with delight. 

_____

“Don’t you think you’re going to hell anyway?” River asked one day, and the patrons at the next table glanced over at them. 

“Can’t figure as how I’m not,” Jayne answered, and downed his shot. River stuck a finger into hers and sucked it into her mouth. “If you ain’t gonna drink that, I will,” Jayne said, annoyed because she had insisted and it wasn’t cheap and she wasn’t going to waste good liquor like that. 

“If you’re not afraid of regular hell, why are you afraid of Special Hell?” River asked, and stuck her finger back in her shot glass. 

“Quit playing with it,” Jayne snapped. “Figure I’ll know everybody in regular hell, I guess.” 

River took her finger out of the glass and downed the shot smoothly, giving a little shiver and wiping her mouth when she was done. “Atta girl,” Jayne said. 

“Maybe you’ll go to heaven, Jayne,” she said. “Maybe you’ll go to heaven for taking care of me.” 

“What, for teaching you to drink and steal and curse?” Jayne said. “I damn well better not go to heaven for that. Can’t figure it’d be much fun anyway, with the praying and the do-gooders.” 

“Can I come to regular hell with you?” River asked. 

“No,” Jayne said, and ordered them more shots. 

_____

It was hard to tell when River was being crazy and when she was just being River. The doc had been a little strange himself, Jayne knew, so maybe it just ran in the family. Still, she wasn’t all screaming crazy anymore, even if she did babble sometimes. Though sometimes her babble wasn’t really babble, he’d learned. 

She squawked about the trees having guns on one job until Jayne gave in and clambered up into the limbs. He caught the man up there unawares and acquired a nice new weapon in the doing. 

She told him that a buyer smelled like lies and blood and damned if he didn’t try to kill Jayne and take the payload. He might have succeeded, and therefore still be alive, if Jayne hadn’t been ready for it. 

She muttered to herself about Jonesy’s wife tossing him out of the house and how the couch in his office hurt his back and three days later Jayne ducked out of sight in the middle of the night when he spotted a sign reading “Lesley Jones, Asst. Mgr.” A second later Jonesy, disheveled and holding his back, opened the door and looked blearily down the corridor. 

And once she had refused to set foot in a restaurant, squeaking, “Hands of blue! Hands of blue!” as she clutched and dragged at him, making it impossible to move, until he gave up and took them to the place across the street. He was throwing out his trash when he looked up to see two men in black suits wearing blue gloves leaving. Everything about them screamed Fed, and he and River were out the back door and off that moon within the hour. 

He’d gotten so used to her crazy strangeness that he wasn’t even surprised when she showed up at the gully he’d slid into, his leg too torn up to climb to the top. 

“I think something went wrong somehow,” he called up when her face appeared over the edge. 

“You complain really loudly,” she griped at him once he was back on flat land, though Jayne hadn’t let loose so much as a word. “You woke me up.” 

“Yeah, well, it hurts,” he grunted. 

River scowled. “Be more careful,” she said, and kicked his good leg. 

_____

Mal showed up at Deadwood. Managed to break into the room while Jayne was sleeping, though Jayne nearly blew his face off with the gun he kept under his pillow before he realized it was the captain. 

”Hell, Mal, I coulda killed you,” Jayne said when he saw who it was. He clicked the safety back on and sat up. “Where you been? I waited for you.” 

“I got a little sidetracked,” Mal said, and grinned maniacally. “I can’t believe you kept the girl,” he added, and pressed the barrel of a gun against Jayne’s temple. “You enjoying her?” 

It pissed Jayne off too much for him to worry about the gun. He stood and towered over Mal. “It ain’t like that,” he growled. “I ain’t ever laid a hand on her. And you got a lot of gorram nerve, after leaving all of us to rot, to fuss about what I done. I minded the ship. I buried the dead. I got us out of there. I take care of the girl. What the hell have you been doing, Mal?” 

Mal didn’t get to answer because River popped up behind him, as she was apt to do, and in the next second, Mal was on the floor and his gun was in her hand. 

“Hi, Mal,” she said as she pointed it at him. 

“Aw, look, Jayne’s been teaching you how to be a bad guy,” Mal said, a little out of breath. River smiled dangerously. She didn’t click the safety on, but she did move the gun so it wasn’t pointed at Mal’s head. Jayne offered him a hand up from the floor. 

“Where’s Zoe?” he asked. 

“We parted ways a bit back,” Mal said, and moved nervously about the room, taking it in. “Had some differences of opinion on how to proceed.” 

“Proceed with what?” Jayne asked. 

Mal shrugged. “Some things. Things I got going on. What I’m here about, actually.” His eyes roved over the room wildly and Jayne suddenly wished he hadn’t set his gun down on the bed. 

“What’re you doing here, Mal?” he asked lowly. 

Mal laughed, and the noise made the hair on the back of Jayne’s neck rise. “Come to tie up some loose ends, Jayne,” he said. “Pick up what I left behind, as I have need of it now. Up to you how this goes from here, Jayne, though I don’t imagine you’ll object. You’ve been trying to ship her off to someone since you got off the boat.” 

Jayne could remember a time when Mal had lectured him about calling a girl it. 

Mal was moving around the room, touching Jayne’s things, running a finger along the walls. “I’ve got plans, you see,” he said conversationally, “and I imagine she’ll be right handy to them. There’s people who are going to pay for things, and little River here is going to help me make sure that pay they do.” 

“War’s over, Mal,” Jayne said bluntly. 

“It’s just starting, Jayne,” Mal said, and went for him. Jayne lashed back quickly, tossing Mal against the wall with a satisfying wallop before he noticed the knife beneath his ribs. 

“Ah, hell,” Jayne said. “What’d you go and do that for, Mal?” 

“Sorry, Jayne,” Mal said, “but you’ve served your purpose. River, sweetheart, you’re coming with me.” He reached out a hand for her gun. “Just give me that before someone gets hurt. No touching, remember?” 

“No touching,” River echoed, and took a step toward Mal. Jayne’s stomach sank. 

“That’s right, that’s a good girl,” Mal said, and River smiled at him trustingly just before she clocked him in the face with the handle of the weapon. Mal had just enough time to look surprised before hitting the ground, out cold. 

“Bet he didn’t know you could do that,” Jayne said, and yanked the knife out. He grabbed a shirt off the floor and pressed it to the wound. 

“No power in the ‘verse can stop me,” River said, and smiled. 

_____

They left Mal locked in the closet, though Jayne knew they’d be better off killing him. Still, Mal had been a good captain, and it was too bad, him going all wrong in the head. They’d be long gone from Deadwood by the time Mal came to and found his way out, anyway. 

”You sure are getting handy at doctoring,” Jayne said to River as she dressed the wound, then regretted it when a shadow flickered across her face. It was gone quick enough, though, leaving her face soft and thoughtful. 

“Do you think if you’d died protecting me that you would have gone to heaven?” she asked. 

“Ain’t trying to go to heaven,” Jayne grunted. “Just stay clear of that Special Hell.” 

River straightened up and smiled at him. “Jayne,” she said, “there is no Special Hell.” 

Jayne had figured that for a while, but he didn’t say so. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, “Still, ain’t the kind of thing you want to be wrong about, is it?” 

“No,” River said, and she smiled at him, her mouth open and delighted, her eyes aglow. 

“Regular hell, now, we’re going there,” he added. 

“Oh, yes,” she answered. “But we’ll be in good company.” 

Jayne stood up, careful of the wound, and looked down at her with a wry grin. “Yeah,” he said. “I reckon so.”


End file.
